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June
Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press! Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary
The Morning Murmur – Thursday, June 8, 2006
1. Insurgent Leader Al-Zarqawi Killed in Iraq - Washington Post
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the mastermind behind hundreds of bombings, kidnappings
and beheadings in Iraq, was killed Wednesday evening by an air strike
northwest of Baghdad.
2. Busby bust for Dems: Calif. loss bodes bad for vacuous party - Boston Herald Op-ed
If the Dems can't win on the corruption-and-change issue in the district of
Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who now sits in a federal prison cell, even when
they are running against a former GOP member of Congress turned lobbyist,
they better figure out a stronger message.
3. Bolton decries Annan deputy's criticism of U.S. - Washington Times
John Bolton demanded yesterday that Kofi Annan repudiate what Mr. Bolton
called "condescending" remarks about Americans by the secretary-general's
chief aide, sparking a nasty U.S.-U.N. spat in which neither side showed
signs of backing down.
4. There's Nothing Hateful About Protecting Marriage - Human Events
If a Marriage Protection Amendment is ever going to be passed, conservatives
must dispel the myth that opposition to same-sex "marriage" is the same as
hatred of gays. If we allow liberals to reduce marriage to being defined as
a mere benefits package, we risk altering free-speech rights while sliding
down a slope of no return.
5. Taxes Everlasting - Wall Street Journal
Two-thirds of the public
wants to repeal the death tax because they think taxing a lifetime of thrift
due to the accident of death is unfair, and even immoral. They also
understand that the really rich won't pay the tax anyway because they hire
lawyers to avoid it.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Insurgent Leader Al-Zarqawi
Killed in Iraq - Washington Post
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Thursday, June 8, 2006; 7:27 AM
BAGHDAD, June 8 --Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the mastermind behind hundreds of
bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, was killed Wednesday evening
by an air strike northwest of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials said
Thursday.
Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born high-school dropout whose leadership of the
insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq made him the most wanted man in the
country, was killed along with seven aides near the city of Baqubah, the
officials said.
The stated aim of Zarqawi, 39, in addition to ousting U.S. and other forces
from Iraq, was to foment bloody sectarian strife between his fellow Sunni
Muslims and members of Iraq's Shiite majority, a prospect that has become a
grim reality over the past several months.
His killing is the most significant public triumph for the U.S.-led
coalition since the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein, although analysts warned
that Zarqawi's killing would not stem the tide of insurgency and violence in
Iraq any more than Hussein's capture did.
Underscoring that warning, an explosion ripped through a busy outdoor market
in Baghdad just a few hours after Zarqawi's killing was announced. The
blast, in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood, killed at least 19 people and
wounded more than 40, the Associated Press reported.
"Today Zarqawi was defeated," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, appearing
at a midday news conference with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen.
George W. Casey, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. "This is a message
to all those who use violence killing and devastation to disrupt life in
Iraq to rethink within themselves before it is too late," Maliki added.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair called Zarqawi's death "a strike against
al-Qaida in Iraq, and therefore a strike against al-Qaida everywhere." He
called Zarqawi the "most vicious prosecutor" of terrorism in Iraq.
Zarqawi was killed in a rural house in the village of Hib Hib, about 55
miles northwest of Baqhdad, Maliki said.
"Tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network led forces
to al-Zarqawi and some of his associates who were conducting a meeting . . .
when the air strike was launched," Casey said.
Video footage of the site broadcast on CNN showed a vast pile of cement
rubble against a backdrop of tall palm trees. Iraqi civilians could be seen
picking through the rubble, and finding little more than an occasional piece
of charred clothing or a blanket.
Casey said Zarqawi's identify was confirmed by "fingerprint verification,
facial recognition and known scars."
His statement was met by applause among Iraqi reporters assembled in a
briefing room. The announcement, which was confirmed by a Website linked to
al-Qaeda in Iraq, was also met by celebratory gunfire in the streets of
Baghdad.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which had recently rebranded itself as part of a coalition
of insurgent groups called the Mujahideen Al-Shura Council, had claimed
responsibility for hundreds of attacks over the past three years, including
many of the deadliest.
The group's focus had recently begun to shift from attacks on military
forces to the targeting of civilians, most of them Shiites. In an audio
statement last week he called for the killing of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
the country's most revered Shiite cleric.
U.S. forces had placed a $25 million bounty on Zarqawi, the organization's
leader and most public face. He was last seen publicly in a video that aired
in early May, after widespread reports that U.S. and Iraqi forces had
stepped up efforts to capture him.
"Zarqawi was the godfather of sectarian killing and terrorism in Iraq,"
Khalilzad said. He sought a civil war within Islam and a global war of
civilizations. "His organization has been responsible for the death of
thousands of civilians in Iraq and abroad."
After the news conference, Al-Maliki told the al-Arabiya television network
that the $25 million bounty would be honored. "We will meet our promise," he
said without elaborating.
U.S. commanders have consistently portrayed al-Qaeda in Iraq as the
country's leading insurgent group and made killing Zarqawi and other top
leaders a top priority. "The death of Abu Musab Zarqawi marks a great
success for Iraq and the global war on terror," Khalilzad said.
But he also cautioned "Zarqawi's death will not in itself end the violence
in Iraq."
After Hussein was captured in an underground shelter near his birthplace of
Tikrit there was widespread speculation the insurgency would weaken, but
violence has since steadily escalated.
A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda in Iraq posted today on mosques in
Ramadi, a violence-wracked city in western Iraq, claimed that the
organization would be led by "a new prince" who had been named by Zarqawi to
succeed him in the event of his death. "He will be a copy" of Zarqawi, the
statement said.
Casey, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, acknowledged that
"although the designated leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq is now dead, the
terrorist organization still poses a threat."
Khalilzad called the news "a good day for Iraq," and later added it was "a
good day for Americans as well." He urged Iraqis to unite, in the wake of
the news, behind Maliki's fledgling government, which took months to form
and has struggled to agree on nominees for key ministerial posts.
Minutes after the Zarqawi's death was announced the long-debated interior,
defense and national security posts were filled in a giddy session of
parliament. Abdul Qadir Muhammed Jassim, a Sunni Arab and former Iraqi army
commander, was named defense minister, Jawad al-Bolani, a Shiite, was put in
charge of the interior ministry, and Sherwan Alwaeli, a Kurd, was named the
country's top official for national security.
"I call on Iraq's various communities to take responsibility for bringing
sectarian violence to an end, and for all Iraqis to unite behind Prime
Minister Maliki," Khalilzad said.
Staff writer Debbi Wilgoren in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060800114_2.html
2. Busby bust for Dems: Calif. loss
bodes bad for vacuous party - Boston Herald Op-ed
By Virginia Buckingham
Boston Herald Columnist
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Stop measuring for drapes, Nancy.
If Democrats can't win a special election for a seat left open by the guilty
plea of a senior Republican congressman for bribery in a political
environment that can politely be described as more sour than milk left on
the counter for a week, how can they expect to win back control of the House
of Representatives, handing the speakership to Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)?
Democrats are claiming the fact that the Republican Party had to spend $5
million to assure victory for former Rep. Brian Bilbray in California's
GOP-friendly 50th congressional district is a sign of their own strength.
In reality, the loss is a sign of the weakness of a national strategy which
hangs its hopes on the GOP's "culture of corruption" and that Viagra of
politics - "change."
It's dangerous to put too much stock into one special election, especially
in a state in which former Gov. Jerry Brown is selected as the Democratic
nominee for attorney general on the same day Rob "Meathead" Reiner's pet
cause of tax increases for universal pre-school is wiped out by 20 points.
But Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean ignores the signal
from California at the party's peril: If the Dems can't win on the
corruption-and-change issue in the district of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who
now sits in a federal prison cell, even when they are running against a
former GOP member of Congress turned lobbyist, they better figure out a
stronger message.
It turned out that the issue which voters cared about in the 50th was not
"corrupt money from Duke Cunningham and Tom DeLay" as Democratic candidate
Francine Busby and Dean hoped. It was the hot-button that plays right to the
GOP's strength - illegal immigration.
Bilbray's campaign was anti-amnesty and pro-fence, that is, he favored
building a border fence from the "Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico."
Busby supported the McCain-Kennedy guest worker compromise.
Underscoring the two divergent positions in the campaign's final days was a
Busby gaffe in which she appeared to invite illegal immigrants to vote
"without papers." Then a high-profile cancellation of a Bilbray fund-raiser
by a miffed John McCain solidified the GOP candidate's strong
anti-immigration credentials.
While Busby stressed a break from "politics as usual," Bilbray pointed out
his leadership in adding 1,500 border guards during his past stint in
Congress and showed footage of himself riding atop a bulldozer cleaning up
sewage spilling into California from Tijuana.
Yes, the stink of sewage voters could actually smell beat the stink of being
a Washington insider hands down.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, they have a lot more video footage of Tom
DeLay and Jack Abramoff than they do of their 2006 candidates conferring
with the Minutemen voluntarily patrolling the U.S./Mexico border.
The recent terrorist arrests in Canada, highlighting the weak northern
border, just adds to a natural Republican advantage.
National Republican pollster Neil Newhouse (who polls for Lt. Gov Kerry
Healey here) said, "California shows that campaigns still matter and that
it's possible for GOP'ers to overcome the negative political environment.
The Democrats had the wind at their back but just couldn't put her [Busby]
over the finish line."
With the midterm elections only five months away, the Democrats have yet to
come up with a message that moves voters. There's no reason for Speaker
Denny Hastert to get the packing boxes out of storage yet.
http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=142630
3. Bolton decries Annan deputy's
criticism of U.S. - Washington Times
By Betsy Pisik
Published June 8, 2006
NEW YORK -- John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
demanded yesterday that Kofi Annan repudiate what Mr. Bolton called
"condescending" remarks about Americans by the secretary-general's chief
aide, sparking a nasty U.S.-U.N. spat in which neither side showed signs of
backing down.
"I spoke to the secretary-general this morning. I said, 'I've known you
since 1989, and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N.
official that I have seen in that entire time,' " Mr. Bolton told reporters
yesterday morning.
"To have the deputy secretary-general criticize the United States in such a
manner can only do grave harm to the United Nations."
Neither the U.S. Mission to the United Nations nor the State Department
spelled out what sort of harm was meant, but Mr. Bolton's remarks were
widely presumed to augur a new budget fight.
"I am concerned at this point at the very wounding effect that this
criticism of the United States will have in our efforts to achieve reform,"
Mr. Bolton added, a likely reference to the effect on Congress, where bills
to limit or put conditions on the payment of U.N. dues have been discussed.
Mark Malloch Brown, the U.N. deputy secretary-general, said Tuesday that
Middle America did not understand how closely the United States works with
the United Nations because the Bush administration had failed to publicly
support the organization.
"Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been
largely abandoned to its loudest detractors, such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox
News," Mr. Malloch Brown said in a speech to two think tanks, the Center for
American Progress and the Century Foundation.
"The U.N.'s role is in effect a secret in Middle America even as it is
highlighted in the Middle East and other parts of the world," he added. "To
acknowledge an America reliant on international institutions is not
perceived to be good politics at home."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington yesterday that
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be "most surprised" by Mr. Malloch
Brown's complaints.
"This administration has worked very hard and worked very closely with
Secretary-General Annan on the issue of U.N. reform. We've worked hard to
explain what we're doing to the Congress. We've worked hard to explain that
to the American people," he said.
But U.N. officials were not backing down.
"The secretary-general stands by the statements made by his deputy ... and
he agrees with the thrust of it," said Annan spokesman Stephane Dujarric. He
said there was "no question" of repudiating the remarks or disciplining the
often-outspoken deputy.
The United States and the United Nations have clashed repeatedly over the
years. Most recently, Washington has been pressing for reforms to make the
organization more efficient and accountable, and Mr. Annan himself has
drafted several proposals to streamline the far-flung organization.
Many of the key reforms have been shot down by a coalition of developing
nations, which did not want to see decision-making taken from committees in
which they constitute a powerful voting bloc.
U.N. officials are particularly frustrated because the United States has
held up approval of its current contribution to the organization's budget in
hopes of maintaining pressure for reforms.
Mr. Malloch Brown, a British national who has long lived in the United
States, said in his speech that Washington's "intermittent" attention to the
organization has contributed to a relationship similar to a "bad marriage."
"And when the U.S. does champion the right issues like management reform, as
it is currently doing, it provokes more suspicion than support," he said.
Mr. Malloch Brown said he was offering the remarks as "a sincere and
constructive critique of U.S. policy toward the U.N. [as] a friend and
admirer."
But the former World Bank vice president and public relations executive
clearly understood the explosive nature of what he said. It has been a
custom that senior U.N. officials do not criticize member nations,
particularly the largest contributor to the U.N. budget.
"I am going to give what might be regarded as a rather un-U.N. speech," he
said at the outset. "My underlying message, which is a warning about the
serious consequences of a decades-long tendency by U.S. administrations of
both parties to engage only fitfully with the U.N., is not one a sitting
United Nations official would normally make to an audience like this."
U.N. and U.S. officials agree that Mr. Malloch Brown, who left the World
Bank to run the U.N. Development Program with the Clinton administration's
support, has worked vigorously on U.N. management reform.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20060608-120858-4702r.htm
4. There's Nothing Hateful About
Protecting Marriage - Human Events
by Michael Lewis
Posted Jun 07, 2006
According to the New York Times, DNC Chairman Howard Dean has an extensive
plan to win elections and revive a Democratic majority. No, it doesn't call
for fundamental changes in the Democratic message; rather, it calls for
grassroots efforts to heighten the presence of Democratic ideas in
Republican strongholds by using catchy slogans like "Republicans are stupid,
brain-dead, white Christians." With that kind of language, Utah is sure to
go blue for the first time since 1964 in 2008.
The latest spew of ignorance to come from Howard Dean criticized the
Senate's proposed Marriage Protection Amendment as "discriminatory, hateful,
and divisive." This is after mistakenly telling Tim Russert that the
Democratic Party is firmly against gay "marriage." He later backtracked
after a gay-rights lobbying group demanded that its recent contribution to
the DNC be returned. When money is at stake, principles go out the window.
If a Marriage Protection Amendment is ever going to be passed, conservatives
must dispel the myth that opposition to same-sex "marriage" is not the same
as hatred of gays. Rather, it is the exact opposite, according to the
leaders of the religious world. Activism by conservatives on behalf of
marriage stems not from bigotry, but from the desire to preserve the "most
enduring and important human institution," according to President Bush,
"which cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious, and natural roots."
Unfortunately, we live in a world wherein opposition to an agenda is
perceived as outright hatred of those who push it. Many of my liberal
friends have questioned how I can have gay friends, all of whom I think are
wonderful individuals, and be against gay "marriage." This is possible in
that we are to treat our neighbors as we would like to be treated. This rule
does not, however, obligate either party to support the other's politics,
nor does it oblige the nation to redefine an institution that is the
building block of society. One can have gay friends and be opposed to
same-sex "marriage" in the same way that one can be friends with
African-Americans and be against "reparations."
In the midst of falling poll numbers and an increasingly dissatisfied
Republican base, the Senate is ready to vote on the Marriage Protection
Amendment. The weeks leading up to this critical debate have been filled
with petition drives nationwide, perhaps most notably by the Knights of
Columbus and the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops. It is a big issue with
values voters, who largely contributed to the President's re-election in
2004. Until now, many issues important to the Catholic and Protestant
communities have been brushed aside by the White House.
Faced with criticism from the conservative base, gay-rights groups, and the
Democratic Party, President Bush began the week with a push for the
amendment in the Rose Garden. Mary Cheney, Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter,
has publicly criticized the President's stance on the issue, much to the
chagrin of the conservative base.
While many criticize the amendment as writing discrimination into the
Constitution, it is in reality an attempt to protect marriage as it has been
defined for eons. Moreover, the amendment seeks to halt the onslaught of
litigation and challenges to state constitutional amendments, which have
passed by enormous margins in every single state that has put the issue
before the electorate.
Still, many want to reduce marriage to nothing more than a relationship
between "people that love each other." The fact is, marriage has always been
about protecting society through procreation. According to the U.S. Council
of Catholic Bishops, marriage is an institution FOUNDED BY GOD, to achieve
the full union of complimentarity between male and female, for the purpose
of bringing new life into the world. Very simply, if marriage was simply
about "people that love each other" gay marriage would have been accepted
centuries ago, along with other versions of "marriage."
In addition to wanting to protect marriage as it was created by God, the
amendment is crucial if we are to protect the nation from the slippery slope
which follows public recognition of same-sex "marriage." The Netherlands,
which legalized gay "marriage" quite some time ago, bestowed it's first
"group civil union" on a man and two women in 2005, according to the Times.
The trio is now fighting for marriage rights.
More shocking, perhaps, is the curtailing of free-speech rights in Canada
after it legalized same-sex "marriage." A lesbian couple in British Columbia
sued the Knights of Columbus, a charitable Catholic men's group for refusing
to rent its social hall to the couple for their "wedding" reception after
finding out that the couple was gay. The Knight in charge of booking the
hall for events worked with one of the lesbians at the local Costco. After
the Human Rights Tribunal ordered the Knights of Columbus to pay an
unspecified amount to the couple for "emotional damages," the Knight was
fired from Costco by his openly-gay supervisor for "workplace hostility."
Additionally, a Catholic priest is awaiting trial by the Canadian Human
Rights Tribunal for giving a homily in which he criticized Canada's
legalization of same-sex "marriage."
The protection of marriage is essential to preserving society as we know it.
Marriage was recognized by the state long after it was created by God. The
autonomy of the state does not authorize it to redefine a sacred institution
created by God and nature merely for the sake of guaranteeing benefits to
gays, who are deserving of dignity and respect. If we allow liberals to
reduce marriage to being defined as a mere benefits package, we risk
altering free-speech rights while sliding down a slope of no return.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15356
5. Taxes Everlasting - Wall Street
Journal
June 8, 2006; Page A18
If you've followed the death tax debate, you know that few issues raise
liberal blood pressure more. Liberal journalists in particular are around
the bend: How in the world can the public support repealing a tax that most
Americans will never pay? Good question, so let us try to answer.
Americans favor repealing the death tax not because they think it will help
them directly. They're more principled than that. Two-thirds of the public
wants to repeal it because they think taxing a lifetime of thrift due to the
accident of death is unfair, and even immoral. They also understand that the
really rich won't pay the tax anyway because they hire lawyers to avoid it.
For proof that they're right, they need only watch the current debate. The
superrich or their kin-such as Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffett-are some of
the loudest voices opposing repeal. Yet they are able to shelter their own
vast wealth by creating foundations or via other crafty estate planning.
Edward McCaffery, an estate tax expert at USC Law School, argues that "if
breaking up large concentrations of wealth is the intention of the death
tax, then it is a miserable failure."
Do the Kennedys or Rockefellers look any poorer from the existence of a tax
first created in 1917? The real people who pay the levy are the thrifty
middle class and entrepreneurs who've built up a modest nest egg or business
and are hit by a 46% tax rate when they die. Americans want family
businesses, ranches, farms and other assets to be passed from one generation
to the next. Yet the U.S. has one of the highest death tax rates in the
world.
By far the largest supporter of preserving the death tax is the life
insurance lobby, which could lose billions of dollars from policies written
to avoid the tax. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the
insurance industry is the main funder of an anti-repeal outfit known as the
Coalition for America's Priorities. A Coalition ad features a sound-alike of
heiress Paris Hilton praising the Senate as "like awesome" for cutting her
family's taxes. But this is the opposite of the truth. The American Family
Business Institute has found that the bulk of the Hilton estate has long
been sheltered from the IRS in tax- free trusts.
Frank Keating, president of the American Council of Life Insurers, has
criticized repeal by saying: "I am institutionally and intestinally against
huge blocs of inherited wealth. I don't think we need the Viscount of Enron
or the Duke of Microsoft." But while he was Oklahoma Governor in the 1990s,
Mr. Keating took a different line: "I believe death taxes are un-American.
They are rooted in the failed collectivist schemes of the past and have no
place in a society that values entrepreneurship, work, saving, and
families." We can appreciate how such a marked change of views would give
Mr. Keating intestinal issues.
Which brings us back to the political paradox that, even with Republicans at
a low ebb, voters still support death tax repeal. A majority in both houses
of Congress also supports it, so Senate Democrats can only stop repeal with
the procedural dodge of a filibuster. Even at that, several Democrats are
clamoring for a compromise that would take the issue off the table in
November. They recall what happened in 2004 to Tom Daschle in South Dakota.
But Republicans should only accept a compromise if it lowers the death tax
rate enough (to 15%) to reduce the incentive for avoidance and eliminate its
punitive nature. Voters have been saying clearly and for years that they
don't want a tax whose only justification is government greed and envy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114973578645274613.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
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